Please enjoy the blog version of Taylor & Whitney’s first collaboration, an Advent email series written by Taylor in 2020.

Take a deep breath and settle in.
Light a candle if you'd like.
Advent is arrival.

We wait in silence.
We wait in stillness.
We wait in darkness.
For our Light to come.

Scripture for reflection

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”

3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
    are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
    who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

9 After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. 11 On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
-Matthew 2:1-9
 

16 This is what the Lord says:

“Stand at the crossroads and look;
    ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
    and you will find rest for your souls.
-Jeremiah 6:16

“Every valley shall be raised,
And every mountain and hill be made low;
And let the rough ground become a plain,
And the rugged places a broad valley.

5 “And the glory and majesty and splendor of the Lord will be revealed,
And all humanity shall see it together;
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.”
-Isaiah 42:4-5

Meditation: On the Magi

Wilderness. Darkness. Silence.

An inbreaking light. This is the landscape we find ourselves sojourning in, on this, our longest night.

The central metaphor from Genesis to Revelation is one of journeying with God. An irrefutable through line of Scripture is the struggle of migration, a commissioning of people on the move, from homelands to promised lands, from alienation to restoration, from death to life, dark to light, turning away to turning towards. Abram was commanded to travel to the land of Canaan, his descendants as numerous as stars, Jacob journeys to Bethel, after wrestling with the angel, and Moses leads an exiled people, the Israelites through the wilderness for forty impossibly long years. Ruth stays with Naomi, its own form of defiance, Esther paces a palace to save her people, Jonah evades Ninevah, as he understandably, did not want his enemies to know the blessing of God.

In the New Testament, Joseph travels to Bethlehem for the census, Saul is converted on the road to Damascus, and renamed-Paul journeys all over the Roman Empire, to the heart of Jewish persecution in Rome. The arc of God's work throughout these journeys is making good on the covenant promise over and over and over again, despite our wayward tendencies and wanderings. God uses the elemental to reveal to us of the sacramental, and teach us something of provision, and faithfulness, the wonderment of companionship along the way.

God
as pillar of fire and cloud,
as burning bush and sacred ground
as tabernacle in the wilderness
as manna on the forest floor
as living water at Jacob’s well
as morning star rising in dark and weary hearts
as Word made flesh,

the ultimate move where God put on skin and dwelt among us, in the incarnation of a baby named Jesus, the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, As Eugene Peterson translates in John 1 “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.”

And here we are this Advent on a journey with the Magi from the east, at the first revelation of Christ to the non-Jewish world. When these wise ones show up to greet Herod, they insult him, perhaps intentionally or maybe unbeknownst to them, and plead, "Where is the King of the Jews?" This radical question threatened Herod because it implied that he in fact was not the king of the Jews. Cunningly, he says, “When you find him, come tell me, that I may go and worship him too.” And so began his genocidal plot to kill every male child in the land, two and under, as he was not about to be dethroned by a two year-old, his worst fears of being found fraudulent brought to bear.

The Magi journeyed on, setting out beneath a cobalt sky, deep and moonless, and there in the distance, the poetry of stars. They followed this Star of David, growing ever brighter, hovering over the home where toddler Jesus played. They came bearing gifts from their foreign lands, of gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. Gold, a gift fit for royalty, frankincense, the smoke of which filled the Holy of Holies, representing him as High Priest, and myrrh, a burial spice, symbolizing that this Christ child would die, sacrificially.

The wise men's pilgrimage is an invitation to practice courageousness, to step out on the limb of unknown. It takes courage to approach a narcissistic ruler and ask, "Where is the King?" It takes courage to venture out in bush and briers, enshrouded by darkness, following only a thin ribbon of light. It takes courage to "wrestle in faithful persistence against insurmountable odds," as my husband reflected this week. It takes courage to believe the journey, the winding wait in wilderness, will in fact deliver what or Whom we are seeking.

Brene Brown defines wilderness like this: "an untamed, unpredictable place of solitude and searching. It is a place as dangerous as it is breathtaking, a place as sought after as it is feared. The wilderness can often feel unholy because we can't control it, or what people think about our choice of whether to venture into that vastness or not. But it turns out to be the place of true belonging, and it's the bravest and most sacred place you will ever stand." Far be it from losing our way, wilderness is the place we belong, the altar wherein we meet with God.

I found one of these soul-searching, peace-preparing paths recently. Last year, I embarked on a spiritual pilgrimage of sorts, a sacred sites tour led by Minnesota Healing Stories, right in my backyard, where the rivers meet at Bdote, the birthplace of the Dakota people. Our Native American guides carried and consecrated their stories as holy, embodying both birth and death, genesis and genocide and re-generation, a military base exploiting their sacred land, and its members exterminating their people in concentration camps through starvation, and violence. A forced march from the Lower Sioux Agency (what is present-day Morton, MN) to "where two waters come together" at Bdote-historic Fort Snelling, is a 150-mile march that descendants have commemorated still, walking in the footsteps of their exiled ancestors.

Our Dakota cultural teacher extended his hand over the rivers and said, “We’re still here and we welcome you here. There is enough food and water for everyone.” He placed ceremonial tobacco in our hands to hold, the smoke of sweetgrass and sage rising, purifying the earth beneath our feet. My tobacco mingled with tears as I sent prayers into stolen land and honored the hard and holy stories still living, re-birthing, where the rivers meet. This pilgrimage challenged me to wrestle deeply with my community's complicity, our colonizing, and witness the pain of my neighbors, their ancestors, and the rising of image bearers before me, welcoming, walking with us on sacred, even ground, calling us relatives, another way of saying: We belong to each other.

Yaa Gyasi in her gorgeous new book Transcendent Kingdom writes, “Being saved, I was taught when I was a child, was a way of saying, Sinner that I am, sinner that I will ever be, I relinquish control of my life to He who knows more than I, He who knows everything. It is not a magical moment of becoming sinless, blameless, but rather it’s a way of saying, Walk with me.” Ours is a God who does not leave us deserted in our meandering; God meets us on the road of our suffering, our feet blistered and aching, our faces tear-streaked and drained of vitality. And while we are yet a long way off, God leaves the candle burning low, hoping beyond hope that we'll find our way home, to ourselves, to one another, to mystery of love, divine.

Fellow pilgrim, God is preparing a festival in the wilderness. And you are invited to journey inward. Every valley is being raised. Every mountain and hill brought low. The crooked paths made straight, the rough ways smooth. The lion and the lamb are lying down together. Goodness is overcoming evil. Light, o marvelous Light! is transforming the darkness at last. Whether you turn to the right or the left, your ears will hear the voice behind you saying, “this is the way; walk in it.” The ancient paths rise up to greet you, carrying the wisdom of the ancestors, that great cloud of witnesses before you. The boundary lines are falling in spacious places. Emmanuel is doing a new thing; do you not perceive it?

The mouth of the Lord is speaking, still.

Take off your shoes, for the place you stand, is holy ground.

Audrey Assad's breathtaking version of "I wonder as I wander"

I wonder as I wander
Out under the sky
That Jesus, my Savior
Did come for to die
For poor ornery people
Like you and like I
I wonder as I wander
Out under the sky

Silence as spiritual practice

Silence as spiritual practice

We are bombarded endlessly, taking in a steady stream of distractions, notifications, advertisements, text messages, alerts, news cycles, the all-too-often allure of doom-scrolling, and here we are, jaded and fragmented.  In our cars, we listen to music or podcasts.  In our homes, we check Facebook or email and binge Netflix.  If we are not careful, we are always plugged in, always available.  We are addicted to info which curates unshakable cases of FOMO (fear of missing out).  The volume of our lives is blaring, and we might not be mindful enough to even take inventory of the toll.  Though counter-intuitive, silence is curative, albeit difficult to cultivate.  But "God is the friend of silence" Mother Teresa knew well, or put another way, "Silence is God's first language," wrote Thomas Keating. 

This Advent, I would invite you to set aside time to soak in some silence.  Maybe as you drive, you turn off the music and attend to the anxiety just beneath the surface.  Maybe you wake a half hour earlier, and meditate or pray.  Maybe you find a labyrinth in your neighborhood, and walk it mindfully.  Maybe you retreat into the woods at night, under starlight, or sit at the edge of water, cold and clear, and give gratitude to the God who brought you through this year.  Maybe you practice Sabbath, hide your phone, and breathe in the ruach (Hebrew for wind, spirit) of God.  Or maybe you grieve as an act of remembering, "a love with nowhere to go."   Contemplative spirituality has a treasure trove of practices to help us confront our discomfort with silence, solitude, stillness.  Silence is the salve to our hurried attempts of numbing out.  Stillness is vulnerable.  Solitude opens us to that which we fear most.  We find that we aren't alone; God draws near to us in secret, whispers, hushes: You are beloved.

Prayer of petition

Accompanying God,
Be conceived in us anew. Like Mary, we are pregnant with possibility, and we are tired. Like the nation you were born into, injustice presses in close, we grieve and groan and push up against walls that keep some insulated and others cold. Like wise men, we traverse across wilderness; we watch and wait, we heed. Would you be active and present when we grow impatient and throw our hands up in our waiting places? We pray alongside Julian of Norwich, "let not our souls be busy inns that have no room for thee or thine, but quiet homes of prayer and praise." May we breathe your Name as we long for healing, change, grace, answers, an ending, company, a smattering of hope, outrageous and beautiful. Help us to never mistake your silence for absence, and as we wait with You, let Hallelujah be our song. You, who walked with us in the cool of evening, a lamp at our feet and light to our path, Yours, the Presence who goes before and beside us, be glory forever and ever. Amen.

*These closing prayers are written with similar structure and syntax as Black Liturgies, which would make a beautiful addition to your Insta feed.